The Layover

Meet Tony Bourdain

Chef and Kitchen Confidential author Anthony Bourdain is best known for traveling the globe on his stomach, daringly consuming some of the world’s most exotic dishes on his hit Travel Channel series, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. Once known as the bad boy of cooking, Bourdain is settling into an only slightly more dignified position as a professional gadfly, bête noire, advocate, social critic and pork enthusiast. He is as unsparing of those things he hates as he is evangelical about his passions.

As executive chef at NYC’s famed bistro Les Halles, Bourdain is the author of the best-selling Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, a candid, hysterical and sometimes shocking portrait of life in restaurant kitchens that has been translated into 28 languages. His book, A Cook’s Tour, published in conjunction with his series on the Food Network, was also a best seller in the US and the UK.

His latest New York Times best seller, Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook, is an insider's perspective on the changes in the restaurant business, from Bourdain's bad old days to the present. His other books include Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook, The Nasty Bits, the crime novels Bone in the Throat and The Bobby Gold Stories, and No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach, an illustrated journal of Bourdain’s travels and companion to his Travel Channel series.

No Reservations, widely popular all over the world, has won 2 Creative Arts Emmy Awards for Outstanding Cinematography. In the series, Tony explores cultures and lifestyles that challenge him with a greater understanding of human existence, and experiences the underlying stories behind a locale's traditional cuisine.

In The Layover, Bourdain only has 24-48 hours to make the most of a city. Watch as Tony quickly gathers local intel, faces the enemy of time and distance, gets off the tired old tourist path and tries something new, all within a matter of hours.

Bourdain studied at Vassar College and graduated from the Culinary Institute of America. He resides in Manhattan with his wife, Ottavia, and his daughter, Ariane.